Guild Wars 2

For the first time in the game I tried to do the dungeon Ascalonian Catacombs and it did not go well. I am a level 50 engineer with a rifle/grenade build and I also use flasks for temporary buffs. My gear is pretty current in blues and greens both from PvE and PvP vendors and all the slots are filled. I was in a pug group of other level 40-ish players and we kept getting stomped by the mobs. It seemed like every mob was a boss encounter because we kept getting wiped. I myself would take a few rifle shots at the mobs and then I would go down a few seconds after that. One second I am at full health and the next think I know I’m on the floor. Is there a gear check for the dungeon where it has to be high level PvE gear? I understand that I am not a tank and that getting into a ‘classless’ fighting system may take some time to get used but the mobs hit like a ton of bricks. Is there like a minimum requirement for dungeons, besides levels, that we need to be aware of before you go in them?

Ascalonian Catacombs is notoriously difficult, especially for being the first dungeon people have access to. The other dungeons aren’t nearly as difficult. It just takes patience, teamwork, and a lot of repairs to get through the Catacombs.

I did pretty well on my engineer in AC. I attribute that to two things:

1. My guildmates, with whom I do dungeons. Quality people, they know what they’re doing with their skills, we’re talking in TS3 while fighting, and we get it done without a wipe. I don’t pug.
2. My own personal build and abilities. Here’s what I’m running currently, both in dungeons and out:
1-5 Rifle
6 Prayer to Dwayna
7 Flamethrower
8 Throw Mine
9 Elixir B
10 Supply Drop

Rifle gives you a knockback and a snare.
Flamethrower gives you a knockback, projectile reflect, and fire combo field.
Throw Mine gives you a knockback and blast finisher.
Elixir B buffs your party and yourself during the fight.
Flamethrower’s fire field also works with the blast finishers from Throw Mine (and it’s toolbelt skill) to apply several stacks of might to your party before a pull (provided they stand on you). Drink an Elixir B just after that to add another stack to yourself.

I generally stack Power and Precision, and haven’t needed much Toughness or Vitality because I rarely get hit. Know when to dodge (seeing target of target would be helpful here), and how to snare/knockback with your various abilities, and you should be good to go. Use line of sight tactics against ranged mobs. Your knockbacks also act as an interrupt in many cases.

I’m sure there are many other character builds that have good control, and some healing. I’d mess around with those a bit. Maybe if what I wrote here isn’t your style, add some Toughness or Vitality. I hope you find something that suits you, because a good engineer is really great to see in action.

Our first 1-2 runs through AC were horribad :P

Once you get used to it though – we actually clear the place with few deaths. It can be done!

We really had to rethink how you play through dungeons coming from wow – it’s totally different.

For instance, monks heal , rangers toss traps, elementalists huge AoE dps. We had to stop and think of each pull as a well thought out plan and focus mobs down, while controlling others. Moving alot – dodging, Los’ing.

Use the ability to mark targets and make sure all use it and work together to get those targets down asap. Monks will own your group if left alone and you wont kill any of the other mobs with him around.

All the trash is CC’able too so use those CC’s

Bosses have mechanics and all go down pretty easy once you learn the fights.

AC Explorer mode is the hardest content I have done in a game lol, AC story has nothing on AC explorer.

I ran AC for the first time a couple of nights ago. It’s definitely not an easy first dungeon to run. Granted I’m talking about story mode so it is not as difficult as explorable. The biggest problem we had was with trash. We really had to keep the pulls small and play very conservatively. We all died several times but we never had much trouble with the bosses. I feel like to trash mobs need toning down and the bosses need beefing up. With the exception of the fight where you need to keep the Lovers apart with boulders, the bosses didn’t feel like they had enough unique mechanics. Pretty much just burn them down and be careful. Just my 2 cents

Don’t pug the first dungeon, too many newbs who can’t listen to instructions and learn the dungeon blaming it on bad balancing. I tried telling a few pugs how to do it but they kept doing the opposite: for instance I kept telling them to push the lovers apart and they kept pushing them closer together -_-

I’m primarily an engy btw and I have no problem doing AC when my groups are actually paying attention and not just thinking they can rush in and dps and it’ll be easy.

After reading some of the horror stories, I went and retraited my elementalist to have more toughness and vitality before running this dungeon. I suggested to my other guildies that they also retrait to more survivable builds. We only had a few deaths, mostly on the lover’s boss fight. The trash mobs were fairly easy though.

IMO, you have to think of your character as tank/dps/healer all-in-one in these dungeons, and should set your traits accordingly. You can’t go in with everything in Power/Precision and expect to be able to take a hit.

In other words, dungeons are not min/max friendly.

Big thing i noticed that helps that a lot of people dont seem to do is if theres a necro target lock it and burn that thing down as it hits the party with so many conditions it tends to wipe parties. The next one is once the necro’s are down or theres no necro’s burn ele’s as they do decent aoe damage. Made my ac zones much easier. Others say use the rocks. But i tend to always seem to get the mobs saying there immune to the rocks.

Try more of a control+protection role. Ultimately, it will help out the entire group by reducing boss DPS. Here is my setup:

1-5. Rifle
6. Healing Turret
7. Net Turret
8. Elixir C
9. Elixir B
10. Supply Crate

Once you have your turrets set up, you will be able to to toss in elixirs into your party to remove conditions and boost dps/swiftness. The turret ideology is really for the net turrets. I firmly believe net turret is OP. You can basically immobilze a boss throughout an entire fight. When the supply crate is up, you basically have 3 immobilization techniques (Rifle-Net Shot, Net Turret, Net turret (From supply crate). With rifles, you also have the ability to interrupt and knock down with Overcharged Shot. On traits, make sure you reduce elixir recharge and turret recharge time. Also, another good trait is self-repairing turrets. I try to go heavy into fire-arms, alchemy, and inventions.

Let me know how this works for you.